When Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg submitted
This Is the End to the ratings board of the Motion Picture Association of America, the
co-directors didn’t just expect their raunchy comedy to be slapped with an NC-17 rating — they
secretly planned on the adults-only rating.

Opening on Wednesday,
This Is the End features an array of actors playing themselves. James Franco is hosting a
party at his home when the apocalypse starts. Many celebrities perish right away, but Franco,
Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride and Craig Robinson try to survive the end of
days.

In addition to scores of profanities and liberal drug use,
This Is the End includes several sex scenes — including one between a demonic beast and a
human — and a satanic creature even more well- endowed than Dirk Diggler in
Boogie Nights.

Acting on the advice of distributor Sony Pictures, Rogen and Goldberg intentionally larded the
film with a few sexually explicit frames that they thought would result in an NC-17 mark, meaning
no one younger than 17 would be allowed to see the film in theaters.

The calculated plan was to then trim a little from the superfluously graphic shots, resubmit a
slightly cleaner version to the MPAA and then get the R rating they always wanted.

But even with a surplus of raunchy material,
This Is the End got an R rating for “crude and sexual content throughout, brief graphic
nudity, pervasive language, drug use and some violence.”

The decision stunned Rogen and Goldberg, who also co-wrote the movie.

“All the ratings stuff doesn’t make sense in the first place, but this is, like, ludicrous,”
Goldberg said. Added Rogen: “We actually made it even a little worse than we wanted, and that
version got approved. Insanely, (we) didn’t have a ratings issue.”

Goldberg noted that
The Green Hornet (which he also co-wrote with Rogen) received a PG-13 mark despite the
fact that characters were being stabbed in the eye and having their brains blown out.